Ogygia
by heliosia
Summary: In WWII, Alfred's plane crashes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He wakes up on an uncharted island and is nursed to health by the island's mysterious and solitary occupant. But once their time is over, will he have the heart to leave?
1. Hidden

He woke up in a dark, intangible place, floating as if he'd lost connection with his body. He must have been still falling, he concluded, beyond the heat and searing metal, beyond the sky, perhaps even beyond the sea and earth, falling up into the stars. Space seemed warm and welcoming compared to the eerie chill it brought with it every night. He never thought it would be so comforting and inclusive.

Perhaps he was dead, he thought.

He began to land, as it was, and the first thing he reconnected with was his spine, heavy and sharply sore, like it had been twisted the wrong way for too long. It didn't occur to him that he should straighten it comfortably. Then came the weight and steady motion of his chest, and then his limbs, blurry for long moments before they took shape as four protrusions, and finally the dryness of his throat and the stickiness in his eyes.

When he opened his eyelids, he almost expected to see the vast expanse of space and distant suns in his vision, but there seemed not to be a difference between the inside of his eyelids and what was in front of his face. His chest seized up in panic as consciousness began to guide his thoughts, realising he most certainly wasn't falling or landing or in the expanse of space. He could still be dead, though.

"Are you awake?"

He blinked - void turning into void back into void - before he pieced together the sound had come from his right. He gingerly turned his head, and void gave away to dim, flickering light and smooth earthen walls and bare wooden furniture and a kind, pale face.

The face wasn't sharp, though, fuzzy and fogged. He squinted in the candlelight casting shadows across the face until the figure leaned away and then gently fitted something onto his face. The world came back into such sharp clarity his mind almost pounded from the sensory. He huffed silently in irritation and fought the dull throb to study the defined male figure, fair hair and foresty eyes.

"I found those on you, though they seemed a little bent up," the other explained slowly, clutching, what he now recognised as, a candle closer to his chest. "Hopefully, I've fixed them properly."

He didn't quite comprehend the words spoken, but he enjoyed the cadence of the voice, soft but sharp and young but with a hint of something rustic and antique. The figure didn't seem to mind the blank look in his eyes because the other merely gave a quiet smile and put down his candle to lean over his face. He didn't react as the other peeled something away from his temple, only just then realising there was something there at all.

"You cut yourself well in that flying contraption of yours," the other remarked and pulled away before returning with a cloth. The other dabbed at the side of his face with a cool and wet touch, but it stung strongly and he hissed his breath. The other continued to dab as if it hadn't happened. "But it's not too deep, thankfully. You have several other bruises and cuts, but nothing quite as bad as the burn on your shoulder."

His shoulder dully stung as it was mentioned, but he was afraid to shift it else it chafe and burn anew. The other pulled the cloth away and brought something else over it, soaking up the cooling liquid and covering the tender wound.

"Do you have a name, stranger?" the other asked as he straightened up.

Given that he'd been all but ignoring the generous figure until then, and also given that he wanted to make sure his voice was still there, _he_ was still there, he cleared his throat before speaking in a decisively croaking and subdued voice.

"Alfred," he whispered and, like every time he introduced himself, grinned widely, though his dry lips cracked at the stretch. "Captain Alfred F. Jones."

The other nodded, an echo of a smile on his lips as well. "Well, Captain Alfred F. Jones, I was about to head to bed before you awoke and I would like to carry out my intentions. I suggest that you rest your eyes as well - you will need rest to heal. Quickly." The last word was tacked on hastily but firmly, and Alfred was too tired to recognise how it didn't fit into the other's sentence well.

The other blew out the candle, the only thing illuminating the room as it fell into a soft darkness only broken by the silver light of the moon through a window, and turned to head to another bed. Alfred wheezed and gave a croak which made the other turn back with an expression he couldn't see in the dark.

"Where am I?" Alfred asked hoarsely, but stronger than before. "Who are you?"

"This my island of Ogygia," the other answered, arranging the blanket draped over him before his touch disappeared and the other seemed to fade into the palette of shadows behind him. "And I will remain hidden."


	2. Stormwinds

_The storm worried him._

_It announced itself in airy limbs, shaking the branches of Ogygia's olive tree and snaking through the cracks of his home. He answered the turbulent winds knocking at his door, and found himself facing the clouded face of the sky and the choppy black body of ocean. The storm's imposing figure had rolled in quickly._

_He worried all the way along the trail to the pasture grounds where his few goats and sheep were grazing in the fields, thinking that storms were very uncommon to Ogygia's waters and they always seemed to herald something exciting and momentous. Though, neither of these things necessarily meant good for him._

_He quickly herded his shaken and frightened animals into the shelter of a rocky cave on the other side of the island, petting their skittishness away before he exited the cave to find shelter in his own home._

_The storm punished him for his slow feet, and he was pelted with freezing pellets before he could reach his door and latch it behind him. In the security of his home, he lit a fire in his hearth with shivering hands and huddled next to it as the storm raged on. It pounded on his walls and yelled its whistling fury, but he assured himself the way he always did - that the heavy dark clouds would wear its own strength out before before it dissipated under the everlasting energy of the sun._

_Time was lost on him, but it must have only been an hour or so into the storm when he heard a faint buzzing that came in and out of his hearing range. It must have been an insect, he reasoned, though an unusually large one for the low hum of its wings instead of a typical high squeak._

_He glanced back into the dimness of the room, bathed in orange from the lit hearth, several times but could never spot the flying insect. But it was persistent and grew louder quickly, though the sound was still so washed out that he had to wonder if the creature was even inside his house. It came to the point where he turned his back completely to the radiating heat of the fire and scowled into the space of his home with a pan in his hand meant for the cursed source of the buzzing._

_It grew deafening abruptly, too loud to be any mere insect he finally accepted, and, with hands clapped over his ears, he wearily wondered what the moody heavens had dragged to Ogygia this time._

_Dread ran through his veins, thick and clogging, for a split second before it crashed with the intensity of a falling star and shook the very earth he stood upon. It being something from the outside world, something huge and powerful and the source of the buzzing, which had abruptly stopped after the crash. He stumbled into the table and stayed there even as clay pots and books fell from his shelves, white knuckled grip on the edge of the wood and wide jeweled eyes frantically darting to and from his walls._

_He was expecting a monster._

_But the monster never came and the roar of the storm continued on as if it had never happened. He was beginning to doubt his own fallible mortal senses - his own paranoia could have played tricks on him - and despite a large foreboding presence somewhere beyond his door, he had to know what it was._

_He stood in his open doorway for only seconds before he was drenched into his skin, but the cold couldn't deter him from the sight of the scarred beach of the northern tip of Ogygia, a jagged dark slice in the noon-turned-midnight light filtered through the clouds above. It clawed through the sand until it was visible, sharp and clunky and faintly highlighted by orange flames._

_He was nearly brought to his knees in the deluge of despair that pushed on his chest, and yet he was compelled forward, down the muddy trails, by instincts that had been well tried._

_The vessel, as it seemed to be, was much larger than he'd seen from afar. He stood mere feet from it with bare feet sinking into the sand beneath him, though it was more of an awed and stunned confusion that kept him in his place._

_It towered over his head and stretched out either side like the great wings of an eagle, but had the fins of a fish. It was made of smooth, coloured iron and topped with a great glass dome. It was in this dome that he watched in stunned silence the fire lick silently, contained within the vessel._

_The sight was an incredible one that sparked his curiosity and fascination-but he could have gone his entire lifetime without seeing it if it only meant that his island was never bothered again. But the Fates were always cruel, and that was a fact and so was inevitable destiny. Even if he ran now and barricaded himself in his home until the waters slowly rusted away this monster contraption, he would never be able to escape what was already destined._

_It abruptly opened, the dome top pulled away like the lid of a jar, releasing billowing black fumes into the already black sky. He was snapped from his self-despairing reverie as a body threw itself from the jumping flames, wriggling as a mane of flames ate away at his back. The body, which he would later realise must have been in acute pain, attempted to push itself away from the flames and did, but only by falling off the contraption and landing with a wet slap and a hiss as the wet ground smothered the flames._

_He didn't want to care - and there were no words in the collection of languages of the world to describe how deeply he did not want - but his sharp inhale and immediate lurch forward gave away how much he did, always did. He had too much of a bleeding heart to be healthy, he had long-since concluded._

_He dropped to his knees beside the limp body and firstly rolled him onto to back before the wet sand smothered him. When he pulled away his hands, he could see by the dim moonlight that they were already bloody, but he was unperturbed with another stain and more concerned with the source of the red._

_His eyes searched across and down the body, finding nothing but second priority scratches and bruises. He realised that most of the wounds would most likely be on the man's back, where the flames had been concentrated as the scent of burning skin began permeating the air. He brushed away the damp, charred clothing around one shoulder, where the flesh underneath had been exposed and burned, and made a note to treat it later._

_His gaze finally settled on the face to the body, not peaceful in unconsciousness but slack as if nothing were holding it together. Regardless, it was a handsome, regular face except for the bleeding gash on the side of the forehead. The rain and blood made the hair stick to the wound, and his tentative fingers pushed it away with a quiet breath that thickened into a mist before him._

_The resignation and fatigue that sagged his shoulders couldn't be blamed on the man that had washed up (or crashed down) onto his island uninvited. He couldn't help his injuries any more than he could help destiny, as it now was._

_"It's been a very long time to hold a grudge, hasn't it?" he demanded of the black blanket of sky above him._

_He pursed his lips and breathed shakily before tipping his head back down to the innocent sleeping face of the man before him, who would know nothing of his reoccurring grievances and only needed a savior._

* * *

><p><em>AN: Terribly sorry for the long wait. This chapter doesn't even begin to make up for it. :( And yes, this did cast a little into the past if it wasn't clear already._


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